Ed Reed will be the starter if cleared to play on Sunday

If he is cleared to play on Sunday, Ed Reed will be the starter.

If he is cleared to play on Sunday, Ed Reed will be the starter at safety. Reed has been practicing aggressively this week but still remains a game-time decision for Sunday at Baltimore.

“If he plays, he’s not going to play every play,” head coach Gary Kubiak said. “Is there a play count on him? I wouldn’t say that. If he’s ready to go, we’re going to go play. I don’t think anybody who has missed that significant amount of time is ready to go play 75 plays so we have to be smart there.”

Reed’s ability to recover from practice and subsequent soreness are the lingering issues for the All-Pro safety before he can take the field. Reed has been evaluated on a day-to-day basis as his body breaks down scar tissue from his hip surgery.

“We feel good about today,” Kubiak said Friday. “The biggest thing as I keep telling y’all is it is how he comes out of practices. Is he sore? Stuff like that. He came out of yesterday really good. We’ll see how we did today. We were able to practice outside even though the weather was bad, we were able to stay off the turf and stay outside, so that was a good thing.”